Back in April 2013, Jay-Z and Beyoncé took a trip to Cuba, which provoked a round of wailing, teeth gnashing and threats of jail time from the usual suspects on the Hill, namely, certain South Florida members of Congress, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who exhibit a near Pavlovian response anytime they hear the word Cuba. Jay-Z rapped back something to the effect that going to Cuba wasn’t a real crime like buying a kilo for Chief Keef. (If you don’t get the Chief Keef reference, just remember that Wikipedia is your friend in such matters.)

OFAC agreed with Jay-Z and not with Reps. Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart.  The trip was, OFAC said, a properly licensed “people-to-people” educational exchange tour and, therefore, violated no U.S. laws.

Apparently, the two representatives kept making a commotion about the trip, perhaps believing  that Beyoncé and Jay-Z didn’t qualify for the license because they either weren’t people or weren’t educational.  So the Treasury Department’s Inspector General was called in to review OFAC’s determination that the the famous couple were both people and educational.

In making the determination that OFAC properly declined to fine Jay-Z and Beyoncé for the trip, the Inspector General actually reviewed what Beyoncé and Jay-Z did in Cuba (your tax dollars at work!) and concluded:

Our review found these activities were consistent with the activities for which OFAC authorized the people-to-people license. For example, one article reported the trip included a visit to a children’s theater group and several clubs, where the couple heard live music and occasionally took to the dance floor. According to the article, they also toured Cuba’s top art school, where they met with young artists, and ate at some of Havana’s privately run restaurants, known as “paladares.” One of the city’s leading architects led the couple on an architectural tour of the Old City of Havana, during which the article stated the couple was mobbed by Cuban spectators.

Okay, so let’s suppose that Jay-Z and Beyoncé did nothing in Cuba but lounge on the beach and sip mojitos. What would be the problem with that? Does anyone believe that a regime that has withstood fifty years of U.S. sanctions was on the verge of crumbling but managed to hang on because two pop music stars vacationed in Cuba instead of, say, Aruba?

Permalink


Copyright © 2014 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)